"It turned out the two most critical elements of that remedy," trying to break down hazardous materials by long exposure to low heat or by biological agents, "turned out to be unworkable," the statement said. It noted environmental officials acknowledged the failures only after six years of fruitless efforts.

Moreover, on Monday, Sodie complained about a "lack of transparency" by the DEP in disclosing possible off-site effects of contamination from the site. Groundwater on the property is highly contaminated with benzene. That resulted in faster corrective measures last year, when the Edison Wetlands Association discovered benzene and other hazardous materials were leaking from on-site lagoons into the river.

State reports show the river water tests at the Queen's Bridge in Bound Brook, about a mile downstream, showed excessive levels of benzene four times between 1996 and 2006. That could indicate a long-term leak, not just a 2011 incident, said Sodie, who for years has participated in project meetings with environmental and company officials.

"The information is and was available to the public" in bi-annual DEP reports on waterways, said department spokesman Larry Hajna. As a basic petrochemical found in gasoline, benzene is a common contaminant, so the levels in the river cannot be directly tied to American Cyanamid, he said.

"We don't know what the source of that was," he said.

Sodie acknowledged that could be difficult to ascertain, but questioned why DEP did not report the river benzene level directly in years of clean-up meetings on a site known to be contaminated with the carcinogen. Since the Raritan is a drinking water source, Sodie said it is "shocking" that DEP "buried and ignored" the findings, Sodie said.

The EPA does not know how long the leak lasted, said spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow. "We only became aware of it when we became of the seepage last year, and as you know, prompt efforts were taken to contain it," she said.

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We must work to inform all the communities around the site that the proposal by Pfizer will endanger all the communities including Bound Brook, Bridgewater all the flood prone towns. Not only would Pfizer's plan leave all the poisons in place. Their proposal would place hundreds of thousand of cubic yards of fill in this flood prone area and increase flooding for this region. Putting aside that there are promising technologies that can be used here and their numbers for cleanup are out in left field.

Flooding is already a major problem here and if you take out almost 500 acres of flood storage what happens down stream? Fight the plan and force Pfizer and EPA to do the right thing and clean up this site not cap it.